


Inchoate

by a_chilleus



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (it isn't known for sure but i'm the author and i say he is), Autistic Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, But Mostly Comfort, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24759820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_chilleus/pseuds/a_chilleus
Summary: inchoate, adjin·cho·ate | \ in-ˈkō-ətbeing only partly in existence or operation; especially : imperfectly formed or formulated; formless, incoherent
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 20
Kudos: 169





	Inchoate

**Author's Note:**

> In which I put my own experiences on Jon and let others teach/show him what I had to learn for myself. Shameless fluff.
> 
> Possible tw for dermotillomania (that’s not what it’s about, but it could possibly trigger that anyway)

It had taken Georgie a long time to convince her boyfriend to let her paint his nails, but the week of nagging was worth it to see the tiny smile he couldn’t hide as he looked at the matte black polish in surprised contentment.

“See? I told you they’d look good.”

“I never said they wouldn’t,” Jon said, carefully spreading his hands out on the arms of his chair to avoid ruining the still damp polish. “I only said that it would be a hassle and I didn’t have the time to — ”

“Your excuses are irrelevant when your nails look so good,” Georgie interrupted. She raised an eyebrow, and Jon rolled his eyes, shaking his head fondly. “Now, wait until they’re  _ completely _ dry before you touch anything.”

“I  _ was  _ going to get some reading done for my essay,” Jon said, “but now I can’t touch my books? This is why…”

“I’ll read to you. Give me a minute.”

An hour later, Georgie paused in her reading of a particularly dry textbook, noticing for the first time that her tea was cold and Jon appeared to have dozed off. She quietly took out her phone, snapped a photo, and then rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

* * *

“Jon, what have you done to your nails?” Georgie exclaimed. They sat outside a lecture theatre, coffee in hand, having arrived early, as was Jon’s usual habit. “I only painted those the other day!”

“I, uh…” Jon looked down at his hands. There was very little polish left on them. “I guess I must have picked the polish off? I didn’t really notice.”

“After I spent all that time on them?”

“It wasn’t that long, and — oh,” Jon relaxed as he realised that Georgie’s anger wasn’t genuine. “Sorry,” he said anyway.

“Don’t worry about it,” Georgie chuckled. “They looked nice while they lasted.”

“They did.”

Georgie glanced again at Jon’s nails. They were really awfully short, and in several places the skin around the nails was torn and red. She had noticed when she was painting them, of course, but she had attributed it to stress; it made sense that he would be biting his nails with such an important deadline coming up. Now she thought about it, however, she realised that his nails had never been long to start with — the damaged nail beds might be a new development, at least she had never noticed that before, but it seemed that he had been biting his nails for a long time. It was only later, once her mind had wandered from the lecture and Jon had nudged her to remind her to pay attention, that she realised that she had never seen Jon actually bite his nails. When, a few minutes later, she leant over to borrow his highlighter, she noticed that although his eyes were glued to the lecturer’s slides, his hands were moving, left hand picking at the polish on the right. Tiny flecks of black polish littered the desk.

After the lecture, as they got the bus home, Georgie caught him at it again. She put a hand over his to still him.

“Are you aware you’re doing that?” she asked quietly.

“What?”

“Picking the polish off.”

“Oh. No.”

He looked so uncomfortable at being questioned that Georgie just smiled and changed the subject. She kept her hand in his, though, and noted how his free hand gravitated to the loose threads hanging off his jumper sleeve.

* * *

Jon sat at his desk, his heavy winter coat draped over his shoulders as he worked.

“Jon?”

“Hmm?” Jon looked up from his desk, putting his glasses back on and gathering his notes into a pile. He removed the coat from his shoulders, frowning at the sudden loss of its weight.

“Do you want me to paint your nails again?” Georgie stood in the doorway to his bedroom, holding a selection of dark-coloured polishes. “I think the burgundy would look good on you.”

“I’m kind of busy, sorry Georgie.”

“That’s exactly why I’m suggesting it. You need a break, and I want to spend time with you.”

“I…” Jon sighed. He and Georgie had spent little time together lately, and he couldn’t deny that he wanted to spend time with her. His revision could wait until tomorrow. “Sure. Just let me tidy up.”

Georgie grinned, and stepped forward into the room, picking up a mug of tea Jon had forgotten about and left to go cold. Suddenly, she stopped.

“Um. Jon?”

“Yeah?”

“This jumper…” Jon looked over; Georgie was holding up a grey jumper he had bought from a charity shop two years prior. “I haven’t seen such ripped sleeves since I was in middle school!”

“Oh, I…”

“I assume it wasn’t just my school, right?” Georgie inspected the sleeves, the cuffs of which were threadbare. “Kids — mostly boys, I think — would deliberately wear holes in their sleeves for some reason, and resist all attempts by their parents to buy new ones. Just one of the weird markers of coolness, I guess.”

“I was, um, never… ‘cool.’”

Georgie burst out laughing, and Jon smiled awkwardly.

“Sorry, sorry,” Georgie wiped the tears from her eyes and let out a long breath, before stifling more giggles. “I just — I can  _ hear _ the inverted commas in your voice — have you ever not spoken like a grandpa?”

“Since birth, as far as I know.” Jon took the jumper from her, before folding it and putting it away.

Georgie kissed him quickly on the cheek. 

Later, when they were sitting in the living room, half of Jon’s nails painted a deep navy blue, Georgie brought up the jumper again.

“You don’t have to tell me, obviously, but like… have you always been so fidgety? Because I hadn’t noticed it before, but… your nails are a right state, and so are your sleeves — god, even the top you’re wearing is getting thin around the wrists, and you haven’t even had that one long… Is it a nervous habit or something?”

Jon was silent. Georgie waited, carefully finishing his nails. 

“My grandmother used to complain about it,” he said finally. “So, yeah, I guess I’ve always been … fidgety. But I’m not really aware of it until it’s pointed out.”

“Huh.” Georgie knew better than to apologise for bringing up Jon’s childhood — he hated the sympathy — but she still felt a pang of guilt at the mention of his grandmother.

“I don’t know whether I always picked at my nails, but I used to pick the skin off my lips, as a little kid, and then whenever my clothes got holes in the holes would grow exponentially — so I must have been picking at the threads without noticing. And then, yeah, I mean no one had ever commented on my nails until you, but I’ve probably been doing it at least since middle school.”

“Did your school jumpers look like the cool kids’ ones? With rips you could put your thumb through?”

“Yes, but I doubt anyone thought I was cool for it,” Jon said. They were silent for a while, and Georgie put away the nail polish while Jon blew on his nails to try to dry them faster.

“You know that won’t help,” Georgie said when she noticed. “The moisture from your breath stops them setting. Or slows them down, anyway.”

“Oh.” Jon raised an arm as Georgie came to sit on the sofa, and she took the hint, cosying up to his side. He kept his fingers carefully spread across her shoulder, conscious of the risk of his nails sticking to her t-shirt.

“So… do your nails hurt? Like when you pick at them, I mean.”

“Sometimes, but I don’t usually notice until afterwards. If I’ve picked the skin around them too much then it hurts to get shampoo in them, I guess.”

“Hmm. Is it worse when you’re stressed? I mean, do you do it more?”

“I think so.”

Georgie nodded thoughtfully.

“You’re sitting still now, though.”

“I… yeah, I am.” Jon sounded surprised.

* * *

Jon’s hair wasn’t quite long enough to be able to tie it back yet (though it was certainly long enough to get in his eyes, to his constant frustration), so he was initially confused when Georgie silently handed him the hair-tie that she had had round her wrist halfway through a lecture. It was only later, when she commented on the relatively intact state of his most recent nail polish job, that he understood.

* * *

* * *

Martin watches as Jon pulls the hair-tie from his wrist and re-does his messy bun, then pulls a second hair-tie from his bag. Tim pokes him and raises an eyebrow when Martin looks round at him; Martin glares, and goes back to work. Before long, though, his eyes have drifted back to Jon. Jon’s eyes are fixed intently on his computer screen, as he bites his lip in concentration, but while his right hand remains on the mouse his left is tangled in the hair-tie, twisting it around on his fingers.

* * *

“So, Martin, now Jon’s our  _ boss _ ,” Tim rolls his eyes, “and he has his own office… you’re gonna have to find someone else to stare at longingly when you’re meant to be working.” Martin just glares at him.

“Don’t be mean.” Sasha swats Tim’s shoulder, and he grins at her.

“Oh come on, you know I think it’s cute,” Tim says. “Poor Martin and his weird crush on our weird boss.”

“He’s not weird.” Martin frowns, then sighs as he realises how he sounded. “I mean — I just think — “

“Don’t try and deny it,” Tim teases. “C’mon Martin, you’ve got to admit he’s weird. Buuuuut, he’s not the worst person you could fancy.”

“Yeah — could be Tim.” Sasha winks, and Martin laughs.

“Hey! Sash, that’s — oh, shit — hey  _ boss _ .” Tim salutes sarcastically as Jon enters the breakroom, and Sasha coughs to cover Martin’s surprised squeak.

“Afternoon.” Jon nods at his colleagues as he heads to the fridge. He gets out his sandwich, and is about to leave when Sasha stops him.

“Where are you going, Jon? Not going to eat with us?”

“Oh, I…” Jon flounders for a second, but then he sits down at the small table next to Tim, opposite Martin. Tim waggles his eyebrows and Martin kicks him under the table.

Sitting across from Jon for the remainder of their lunch break allows Martin to observe the way Jon’s hands reach for the hair-tie on his wrist as soon as he has finished eating, and how the ends of his jumper sleeves are slightly threadbare in a way the rest of his clothes aren’t.

* * *

“Statement ends.” Jon clicks off the tape-recorder, noticing as he does so the speck of blood at the edge of his left thumb nail. All the nails on his left hand are the same — short, ragged, and slightly bloody. He sighs, reaching for the hair-tie on his wrist. It isn’t there. He frowns, checks his pockets, then reaches into his bag for another — but there’s none left there either. 

“How the hell do I keep losing these things?” he mutters to himself.

“Losing what?”

Jon startles, knocking papers onto the floor, and Sasha apologises profusely even as she hides her laughter.

“Christ, Sasha, can’t you knock?”

“I did. You didn’t answer.” She raises an eyebrow.

“I — ok, whatever.” It’s hard to be truly angry at her, especially as she helps to pick up his papers and sorts them into neat piles on his desk.

“So what have you lost?”

“Oh, just my hair-ties. They just disappear, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that with bobby-pins.” Sasha nods, then furrows her brow. “But Jon, your hair’s already tied back?”

“I know, I just… I just always have one on my wrist too.”

“Fair… well, see you later, boss.” The way Sasha says it is less mocking than Tim, but Jon still glares at the door as she leaves, just on principle. He pulls his jumper sleeve over his hand, and goes back to work.

* * *

Midnight. Jon lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. Street-lights outside his window cast the room in a sickly orange glow, and he wishes, not for the first time, that his curtains were heavier. He wishes everything were heavier; his limbs feel buoyant, like his body is untethered from itself. Jon pulls his duvet tighter around him, but it’s not enough. His arms, while physically holding the duvet in place, are somehow also floundering, as if floating a centimetre above where they should be. He wishes he still had his old thick coat from uni to drape over him, but even that wasn’t always enough when he felt this inchoate. He pushes the duvet off and gets out of bed, grabbing his glasses on his way to the kitchen.

1am. Jon wraps his duvet into a column and lays it next to him. He feels ridiculous. He sighs, and lies down, wrapping his arms around the duvet and hugging it to him as tight as he can. It’s not enough, but he’s so exhausted he falls asleep fairly quickly anyway. He dreams of falling.

* * *

“Statement of — oh, hello Martin.” Jon turns the tape recorder off, wincing at the sting in the tip of his finger as he does so.

Martin is surprised to find his boss sat on the floor, back pressed firmly against the wall of his office.

“You know there’s a chair right there?” he raises an eyebrow. Jon merely glares at him. Martin clears a space on Jon’s desk and puts down the tea he had been holding. He goes to leave, but looks back at Jon briefly as he opens the door. Jon’s eyes are closed, body tense, his shoulders braced against the wall. His hands are picking almost frantically at the threads of his jumper sleeves.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you s-”

“Martin.” Jon’s voice is strained.

Martin shuts the door, avoiding Tim’s glare from across the office.

* * *

Jon isn’t quite sure how they found themselves here. Or — well, he knew why  _ he _ was there. It was  _ his _ office. The argument with Georgie was only small, but with how off-kilter he already felt the thought of going back to her flat tonight made him feel sick. And, sure, Martin had as much right as Jon to be working late in the archives. But he hadn’t heard Martin enter his office, hadn’t heard him lock the door, hadn’t noticed when he sat down on the floor next to him and turned off the tape recorder.

“How long ago did you finish reading?” Martin had asked quietly, and Jon had startled, breath catching in his throat.

“I… I don’t know. A while, probably,” he had replied.

“You’re on the floor again.”

Jon merely nods. He focuses on pushing as hard as he can against the wall, feet braced against the leg of his desk to force all his weight into his shoulders. Martin is silent, his eyes focused on Jon’s hands as he picks at his nails. Under Martin’s gaze, he finally notices that one of his fingers is bleeding.

“Sorry.”

“What for?”

“For — ignoring you, I guess, or — I don’t know.”

“Jon, it’s ok.”

“Right.”

“Hey.” Martin shifts closer to Jon, and pulls out a tissue from his pocket. “Here.” Jon takes the tissue and wraps it around his finger, not looking at Martin.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I think I found one of your hair-ties in the breakroom, by the way.”

“Oh thank god.” Jon takes the hair-tie from Martin and immediately starts to twist it between his fingers.

“You know you can get things — uh, fidget toys, or stim toys, whatever you want to call them,” Martin says.

“Toys?” Jon raises an eyebrow.

“Not toys like — it’s not childish.” Martin struggles to find the words. “I had a friend at school, they were autistic and they used a — a tangle, I think they called it? Similar movements to what you’re doing with that hair-tie.” Jon didn’t respond. “I’m not saying you’re autistic, necessarily — I mean, you might be? But I’m no expert. It wouldn’t make any difference to me if you were, though.”

“Martin.”

“I’m — I’m rambling, right, sorry. I just mean — there are better ways to get your anxiety out than making yourself bleed and ruining your clothes.”

An hour later, Martin and Jon share the cot in the archives, Martin’s arm slung loosely across Jon’s shoulders as he writes in a battered notebook. Jon is half-asleep, a Pratchett paperback abandoned on his lap.

* * *

They’re in the Scottish safe house, and it’s midnight. Martin is snoring softly beside him, but Jon can’t sleep. He tenses and relaxes each muscle, trying to pull back together the various parts of himself that feel like they’re coming apart and floating away. He reaches for the black and red tangle on the nightstand, but after a few minutes he can tell that isn’t what he needs right now. Martin is hogging the duvet, but he’s not cold, and it wouldn’t be heavy enough anyway. He sits up, and leans against the headboard, but it creaks loudly, waking Martin.

“Jon?” he slurs, rubbing his eyes.

“Sorry,” Jon says.

“No, it’s — you ok?”

“Yeah, I just… not really.” He knows Martin can tell when he’s lying. Martin looks up at him, properly awake now, and Jon does his best to smile, to assure Martin that there’s no danger, it’s just his — just him. He doesn’t know if he can convey that in just a smile, but Martin seems to get it, and just nods thoughtfully.

“What do you need?”

“I don’t — my body feels like it’s floating away.”

“Ah. Lie back down.” Jon does, and Martin pulls him close. “Which bits feel floaty?”

“My arms, mostly, and my chest.”

“Hmm.” Martin shifts so that they’re lying chest-to-chest, and wraps his arm tight around Jon, holding his arms in place tightly enough to feel secure but not so tightly that Jon couldn’t wriggle out if he wanted to. It’s just the right amount of pressure, and Jon sighs, burying his face in Martin’s pyjama shirt.

“That ok?” Martin whispers, and Jon nods against him. He hears Martin chuckle softly, but he’s already asleep before he finds the words to thank him.


End file.
